Hearts of Healing Community Group
For parents of children who have experienced sibling on sibling sexual abuse.
It will be like a man who flees from a lion only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to have a serpent bite him….Amos 5:19
Who will find out? What will they think of us? We are normal people, really!
This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. This is not my life.
“Right now I’m just trying to stop crying so I can face my kids and make supper.”
Another office I thought I’d never enter, my mouth is dry again…sorry, it’s not actually nice to meet you, nothing personal, I just wish I didn’t have to be here...dang, do they all have couches and pillows and fidget toys?
She says, “I’m OK, just tired.” Is she really OK??
Why do my cheeks always feel hot when I tell a new person my story? Why is it so hard to form the words? I can’t look anyone in the eye and say it.
I walk into his room and the music is playing: "A monster, a monster, I've turned into a monster..." Does he feel like a monster? Is he a monster? Did I raise a monster?
OK time for worship (work, rehearsal, etc)...act normal...don’t get emotional or people will ask what is wrong and then what will you say?
“Here, have a candy.” “No thanks.” (Unspoken: If I took even a bite right now I swear it would come right back up...and if I’m not eating, why do I have to go to the bathroom again?)
I don’t think I have room in my wallet for any more business cards...I’d better take them out, what if they fall and someone sees where these cards are from?
I thought there was an online group for everything under the sun, why can’t I find one for this? And I wonder what kind of ads will pop up after I just used those search terms?
Can people tell my eyes are still puffy from crying all night? Do your tear ducts ever just get overworked and quit?
The police know more than the parents. They accuse us of denial--how can we deny what we’ve never had a chance to see?
Waking up with a weight of dread at the bottom of my stomach is just normal now. There is almost a physical weight to overcome to get up.
I try to advocate for my daughter and our family, but it’s like quicksand--the harder I try, the further we sink.
It’s the weekend! Two whole days with no fear of answering the phone or checking my inbox. But two whole days til I can get this burning question answered too.
A dream my son was dead. His friends and their parents were getting ready to head off to college, but he wasn’t going because he was dead.
“I’m so distracted, I headed to the bathroom three times this morning before I remembered to actually stop and use it”.
An inbox filled with correspondence to three lawyers, two counselors, two social workers, and the DA’s office--all in one day.
Every picture, every memory of my kids is re-filed in my brain. Was this before, during, or after? New pain with each memory that arises.
“I thought that things were turning a corner and moving toward healing but we got hit but something else out of the blue and I feel just knocked back down to the bottom again.” Repeat, over and over and over.
Seeing it in writing: The State vs. Your Baby’s Name, Case #..., Charge...
Oh boy! The new social worker writes all her e-mails with exclamation marks! She expects me to be having a great week!
I wonder what it would feel like to have energy again?
Why doesn’t anyone understand what I’m trying to say? Is it me? What am I doing wrong? And why can’t I think of what I really want to say or ask until after the meeting/appointment is over?
Is he being charged unfairly? Or does he actually deserve it? Only the second could be worse than the first.
Why can’t we just eat supper together like normal people? All I want is to be a normal family again.
“How many times have I written that it’s time to move on, and then something comes out of the blue to push us back to the beginning?”
Can you pray with me? I need prayer but I just can’t get my thoughts together to do it myself.
My life is divided into the time before I knew and the time after I found out. My social world is divided into the people who know and the people who don’t know.
How can I be jealous of my friend whose daughter has cancer when I view her Caring Bridge posts with all the supportive replies? What kind of awful Karma am I bringing on myself to feel like that? Is my life really that dark?
We’ve been cooperating, trying to do it their way for months. And where has it gotten us? What’s the point?
I’ve almost forgotten what it was like not to know. My old life feels like it was a different person. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in the past year.
Every picture, every memory of my kids is re-filed in my brain. Was this before, during, or after? New pain with each memory that arises.
It’s so true. Every memory seems tainted and makes me wonder. Every time my daughter starts a story with “you remember that time I was playing with (sons name)....” my mind goes crazy. What is she going to say? Is there more that she’s going to tell me? What if she says something when people are around that don’t know? Ahhhhhhhh this is endless torment for a mother in this situation. I’m “lucky” in the sense that my son can live with his dad and not be in the home but I can’t even fathom what parents do if there’s no other home to split the kids up (at least initially).